Be relentless about asking and answering these seven questions as you take the first steps of your building project.

Resource of the Year: Christian Living

The Listening Life: Embracing Attentiveness in a World of DistractionBy Adam S. McHugh (IVP Books)

Perhaps there’s not another gift, art or skill so in need of resurgent development today than the discipline of listening. Yes, words matter—today, they’re abundant. Yet the need and ability to discern what’s behind them matters even more for those who would be peacemakers in a painfully polarized society.

To hear is to heal; to listen is to love. In The Listening Life, Adam McHugh invites us not only to imagine ourselves “quick to hear and slow to speak,” but to embrace listening as a way of life in order to diffuse divisions and discern the divine.

Also Recommended:

You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of HabitBy James K. A. Smith (Brazos Press)

Jesus asked, “What do you seek?” It’s not so much a question of purpose as it is of affections. James Smith answers the why and how of Solomon’s instruction to “above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

EVALUATED BY MARK AND LINDA DeYMAZ. Mark, an Outreach magazine contributing editor, is the founding pastor and directional leader of the Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas and president of Mosaix Global Network. Linda is a wife, mother and author of two books, including Mommy, Please Don’t Cry.